


Magic in our midst

by Khalehla



Series: Not the usual OTPs [12]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Arsenal FC, Didn't Know They Were Dating, M/M, Magic is Real, trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-19 05:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khalehla/pseuds/Khalehla
Summary: Someone accidentally casts a spell on some of the Arsenal players - oops! - and it's funny how differently some people are affected by it.A "didn't realise they were dating" trope, featuring: a misuse of Google, footballers’ shenanigans, an observant Granit, a long suffering Per, and two oblivious puppies.





	Magic in our midst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yyydelilah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yyydelilah/gifts).



> I'm getting more and more requests for these two... so here ya go, more RobCal and their adorable obliviousness.

Granit is going to murder someone. It was meant to be a _joke_. A _harmless_ joke because they were just a group of pals hanging out, and it is a truth universally known that when a group of footballers get together outside of football, they get up to stupid shit. Last night was supposed to be like every other night; every other night that they’ve all managed to survive relatively unscathed if you don’t count the embarrassing karaoke videos.

But no, for some reason the universe decided that it was time to shake things up a bit and now they are all royally screwed. Because apparently, that joke magic spell that was meant to “make everyone find you attractive and fall in love with you if they weren’t already” was real. No joke. Actual real magic. And how does Granit know this? Because he’s now standing in the change room half an hour before training starts trying very hard not to puke at the fact that he thinks Jack with a beard is quite sexy and that he wants to run his fingers through Hector’s silky locks.

Yeah… _NO._ Nononononono!

From the looks of half the people in the change rooms, he’s not the only having horrific thoughts about his teammates. Aaron actually looks green, hand over his mouth, and Theo has his jersey held up in front of him like a shield. The other half dozen who were there all look like they want to run away screaming.

Mesut, Laurent and Keiran - who weren’t at Jack’s last night, lucky them - look tense, eyeing everyone as though they’re ready to bolt at the first sign of something going wrong.

“Fuck fuck _fuck_ ,” Granit mutters, pressing himself into this locker and trying not to look at anyone. It’s a weird feeling, this mix of attraction and horror that’s making him want to throw up.

“It was meant to be a _joke,_ ” Aaron - the instigator of it all - says into his hands. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

“Oh I think I’m gonna have to disagree with you there,” Alex drawls. “Considering the way you lot are all acting, I’d say your fake spell wasn’t so fake after all.”

“Where the hell did you even manage to find it?” Per asks in exasperation. Granit can already imagine how much their captain is _not_ looking forward to having to explain what the hell is going on to the coach.

“Google,” Jack replies shortly.

“Are you kidding me?” Keiran demands. “What the hell were you all doing last night that you decided googling magic spells was a good idea?”

“It was meant to be a joke!” Robert protests. “I mean fucking hell, tell me someone who actually thought that a spell from the _internet_ would even _work?_ ”

Per decides to intervene before they can start yelling at each other. “The more important question is whether you can all train today?”

Granit looks around the room in dread. He’s pretty sure that he can train no problem, because once he was in the football zone, he could ignore everyone and everything else. Warm-ups though; warm-ups tended to be relaxed and fun and involved a lot of playful touching and that was going to be a problem. No way was Granit willing to touch any of his teammates if he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t going to try and cuddle them. He’d already done that to Hector as soon as he walked in, and the Spanish defender had cuddled back until they both realised what they were doing at the same time and jumped away from each other in horror. It had happened again to Jack - who had nearly punched him before Granit pulled away himself - and that’s when they’d all come to the quick realisation that they were fucked. But Granit is sure, pretty sure, okay, kinda sure, that he could get through training fine so long as none of the others who were at Jack’s last night tried to touch him. He’ll just use his patent Murder Glare™ if any of them tried to come near him; one of the advantages of having a reputation for being a hard ass destroying, ahem, _defensive_ midfielder is that your murderous looks pretty much kept people away when you didn’t want anyone near you. And right now, Granit really wanted his teammates to stay away from him.

“We should be fine,” Hector says with a heavy sigh; the rest mumble their agreement, because what else were they supposed to say.

The tall captain just pinches his lips together and glares at them all before exchanging worried looks with Petr and Laurent. “Fine,” he says eventually. “But I’m going to keep an eye on you; if anyone gets out of hand, I’m letting you explain to coach _yourselves_ what happened, okay?”

There’s some more mumbled agreements and everyone finishes getting ready and they all trudge out to the fields.

“<Of all the stupid things to get up to,>” Per mutters to Mesut in German. “<A magic spell? Really? What are they, five?>”

“<Let’s just hope it wears off soon,>” the midfielder mutters back, “<because we’re all gonna be in deep shit if they don’t get their acts together.>”

Per just grunts in response and Granit can’t bring himself to feel indignant at the quiet conversation.

Training, as expected, is awkward as fuck. The group that were together last night are trying so hard to avoid each other that they’re not getting into tackles and just generally standing around rather than actual training; everyone’s too scared about what they’d do if they accidentally touch. Not surprisingly, they all get yelled at by the coach after half an hour and Per growls wordlessly at them all straight after. They do try harder, Granit even manages to dispossess Aaron during a counter - although both of them immediately jump away from each other as though they’ve been burned. Granit doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved in his life when Wenger finally calls a break.

He goes to grab his water bottle, staying away from particular teammates, and stands off to the side where Mesut is rolling his shoulders and eyeing anyone from the affected group warily. Granit can’t blame the other midfielder’s reaction considering how messed up the morning has been so far.

It’s not until he’s had a chance to just stand still and watch the rest of his teammates for a couple of minutes when Granit notices something strange. Everyone from the group last night were either standing off by themselves or talking to someone who wasn’t affected by the spell; all except Robert and Calum who were standing together.

Robert and Calum _huddling_ close together.

Robert and Calum huddling _closer and closer_ together.

Robert and Calum huddling closer and closer together _and not looking like they are trying not to climb each other_.

A lightbulb goes on in Granit’s head and and he slowly turns to Mesut. 

“<Mesut, have you noticed something strange?>” Granit asks in German because he’s not quite 100% sure he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing and he doesn’t want to make an ass of himself just in case their other teammates can hear.

“<You mean aside from all the horrible tension going around?>”

“<Yes aside from that. I meant, have you noticed anything strange with Rob and Cal in particular?>”

Mesut looks across the field where the two young defenders are standing together waiting for instructions, about a metre away from the other players in their training group. “<Um, no. They look pretty normal to me right now.>”

“<Exactly!>” Granit exclaims triumphantly. He waits for Mesut to get it too, but when the other midfielder just blinks at him, Granit huffs. “<Calum was there last night too!>”

Mesut blinks some more, then his eyes slowly widen. “<And they’re acting normal>,” he says in realisation.

“<Yes!>” Granit is starting to get excited now. “<Why are they acting normal towards each other when they should be trying to stay away just like the rest of us?>”

“<The spell, what was it again?>” Mesut asks, his eyes on the young defenders now whispering to each other, heads close together. “<Something about finding you hot and falling in love...>”

“< _If they weren’t already!_ >” Granit finishes with a grin on his face.

Mesut grins back. “<Oh. My. God.>”

“<Right?>” Of all the fucked up consequences from the stupid spell, they at least had one thing go right from this mess. Granit feels proud; it’s a glorious moment.

“<Do you think they realise?>”

“<From the looks of it, no. I mean they’re acting too normal. If they realised anything by now, they’d be avoiding each other too right?>”

“<But just for completely different reasons.>”

“<Yeah, totally. I mean, how awkward would you be if you suddenly realised you were in love with your flatmate?>”

“<Totally awkward,>” Mesut nods. “<Should we tell them? Or hint, at least?>”

Granit thinks about it for a few seconds. “<Nah, let’s wait until the spell wears off and see if they’re acting any different. Maybe we’re wrong and they’re just better at hiding how uncomfortable they are.>”

Mesut raises an eyebrow at him but agrees anyway. “<I somehow doubt it, but okay.>”

The spell finally wears off the day before their next league match, thank fuck for that.

“No-one is allowed to ever Google magic spells ever again!” Per tells them all sternly that morning. “I will personally _wingardium leviosa_ the next person who tries it head first into an ice bucket.”

“That’s hypocritical,” Aaron mutters to Granit when they head towards their warm up gear. “So he can use magic but we can’t?”

Granit stares at the Welshman in disbelief. “Aaron, you’re the reason why we were in that mess to start off with; I don’t think you can complain about anyone misusing magic.”

Aaron just scowls then goes to join Jack for  warmups.

Granit takes the time to watch Robert and Calum during the training, and during their first break, he nudges Mesut.

“<They’re still acting the same,>” he says, trusting the German midfielder to know what he was talking about.

“<I noticed,>” Mesut says, barely giving the two young defenders a glance. “<I’m actually not surprised when I really think about it.>”

Before Granit can question Mesut about it more, Per comes up to them.

“<What’s so secret that you two are gossiping in German?>” the captain asks them.

“<The two puppies,>” Mesut replies, tipping his head to where Robert and Calum are snapping the bands at each other and laughing hysterically. “<Granit pointed out that they weren’t affected by the spell much; not towards each other at least.>”

To Granit’s surprise, rather than be surprised or sceptical or excited or any other reaction Granit is expecting, Per sighs and rubs his face with his hand.

“<I was afraid this was gonna happen,>” Per says resignedly. “<I was hoping no-one else would notice until they sorted themselves out but then this stupid magic spell happened. Ugh.>”

“<You _knew?_ >” Granit asks incredulously.

“<It’s not like they’re being subtle about it,>” Per shrugs. “<I mean, have you seen their Instagram moments?>”

“<Or their interviews,>” Mesut adds. “<Yeah you’re right, I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up sooner.>”

“<I’m disappointed in you; Musti figured it out nearly the same time as me.>”

“<Musti’s around puppies more than I am; he can tell the differences a lot better.>”

“<Still shouldn’t’ve taken Granit pointing it out to you though.>”

“<True,>” Mesut shrugs. “<What are we gonna do?>”

“<Nothing; leave them to it.>”

This finally snaps Granit out of his reverie, completely lost when Per and Mesut started talking about puppies (what the hell was the connection between footballers and baby animals??), but now he has something to add. But Per seems to have read his mind because all Granit can come up with is “<But we->” before the tall German gives him a hard look.

“<No,>” Per says firmly. “<Leave them be. They’ll figure it out eventually - how can they not? They live together! - but you gotta let them do it at their own pace. If you try to push and say something before they’re ready, it might ruin everything. You don’t want to be the reason why they fall apart before they even have a chance to get together, do you?>”

Granit wants to protest that he’s not going to _ruin_ anything, but he also sees why Per would say that; Robert and Calum really did look happily oblivious right now. “ <Fine,”> he agrees, “<but this is gonna be fucking painful to watch and I’m gonna blame you for it.>”

Per claps him on the shoulder. “<You’ll survive.>”

It’s later, after the game, where they win a comfortable 3-1 for once and Robert and Calum are taking ridiculous selfies and generally being sickeningly sweet and glowing with happiness together that Granit remembers what Per said. Per told him not to _say_ anything, he never said anything about not being allowed to drop non-verbal hints here and there. Granit grins to himself then starts taking multiple photos of the two oblivious dorks.

This was going to be so much fun.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr account ](https://khalehla.tumblr.com) for my writings and random ficlets. If you have a question about this or any of my other stories, come say hi :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I write **fiction** about real people. As far as I know, none of these events ever happened; any resemblance to any actual events are purely coincidental.


End file.
